The present invention relates to an unhanded slide latch device.
Slide mechanisms are used in a wide variety of different applications. One common application is to mount a drawer to a supporting member, such as a desk. The interleaved, extensible slide members enable the drawer to be opened and closed with ease. The slide members customarily include latches or stops to prevent the drawer from being opened beyond a given extension.
At times it is desirable to be able to remove the drawer from the supporting structure. For this purpose, a special, releasable slide latch device must be provided. Many such releasable latch devices have been designed and are in use today. For example, one design employs a resilient metallic blade on one slide member that incorporates an opening which receives a stud on an adjacent slide member to limit the travel of the two slide members relative to one another. By depressing the blade, its surface may be caused to clear the stud and the slides moved relative to one another and disconnected. Another releasable latch device employs two cooperating plastic members which have aligned walls such that when one slide member is moved relative to the other sufficiently, the walls engage and prevent further travel of the slide members. A projecting finger on one of the plastic members permits its wall to be moved out of alignment with the wall on the other plastic member, and the slides to be disconnected.
In use, such latch devices should be easily actuated even by this occasional or inexperienced operator. Many applications also require the latch device to be relatively silent; the clank of two metallic surfaces engaging one another is objectionable. Also, many applications require such latch devices to be quite rugged. For example, one common test for drawer slides requires slide mechanisms to withstand both 15,000 two inch travel impacts and five full travel impacts in response to a ten pound pull while the drawer carries a load of 75 pounds.
Since the preferred latch device should be designed to be used in standard constructions of slides, it must also be received between two closely fitting slide members, yet clear the screws, rivets, and other attachment means that connect the slide members to one another, and to the supported members. Finally, the design of the latch device should be such that it can be employed in automated manufacturing operations; this means that, for example, any element which is reversible should work in either orientation.
These and further objects of the invention will appear from in the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the unhanded slide latch device.